


how it begins again

by anamatics



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 01:08:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins with single flower, a rose pressed into the pages of a book she’d put down months ago and had never gotten around to picking back up.  Tangled around the stem is a faded pink ribbon, all worn, frayed edges that are soft to Joan’s touch.  She picks it up, her finger brushing against the stem, and winces as her finger catches on a thorn.  The book falls open and there are words written on a piece of hotel stationary, edges curling and creased with wear. How many times it’s been folded and refolded, Joan could not say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how it begins again

It isn’t working. 

It is, in fact, crumbling down around her.

It begins with single flower, a rose pressed into the pages of a book she’d put down months ago and had never gotten around to picking back up.  Tangled around the stem is a faded pink ribbon, all worn, frayed edges that are soft to Joan’s touch.  She picks it up, her finger brushing against the stem, and winces as her finger catches on a thorn.  The book falls open and there are words written on a piece of hotel stationary, edges curling and creased with wear. How many times it’s been folded and refolded, Joan could not say.

_I see a future, curled and locked away behind the confines of your ribs._

_Does your heart beat the same?_

_I’d like to take you apart_

_and put you back together again._

That is how it begins.

—

This is how it ends (or how it begins again).

They’re two separate people, who want two separate things. 

Or rather, that is how Joan sees it.

Jamie is jealous, and fiercely possessive of what she deems to be her’s to protect.  Joan catches glimpses of the future that could have been; their fingers tangled together, their foreheads touching, skin still slick with the exertion of their passion.  She could see this lasting; she could see this going on forever. 

She touches Jamie’s hair, fingers twining into it, and confesses something that cuts her down to the very core.  “This isn’t working.”

"I know," Jamie replies.  Her fingers are almost reverent on Joan’s cheek, brushing at the wet streaks that threaten to drift further down Joan’s cheeks. 

Joan had loved it at first.  The intrigue and the passion that still is there: trapped in the space between their bodies, a heartbeat all its own.  She just needs more, something constant, a warm body in her bed every night and no worry about enemies and retribution.  She loves it now, as Jamie brushes her hair from her eyes and tucks it behind Joan’s ear. 

"You are the most fascinating woman I have ever met, Joan Watson," Jamie says and Joan knows she’s telling the truth.  She moves then, up on her elbows and leaning over Joan, a smile that Joan knows is only for her playing at her lips.  "And I would hate to lose you."

Joan turns away.  “You’re never around,” she says into the emptiness of this room, this empty void that is exactly like her life.  She’s seeing someone, she can’t tell anyone - not even Sherlock for he would surly not understand.  “I can’t …” she turns then, looking at Jamie and wanting for all the world to say what she cannot.  She wants to say that this could be love, but she wants to have Jamie all the time, she wants to stop sneaking around. She wants to try to do this like normal people, even if they are anything but normal.  “I can’t keep lying to everyone about where I am and what I’m doing.  It’s eating me up inside.”

There’s a moment then, where nothing is said at all.  All there are lips on Joan’s cheek and fingers twining in her hair.  Jamie’s lipstick is smeared across her cheek and she looks undone and utterly beautiful to Joan.  Joan can see the future but she cannot ask for it.  She knows the answer will be no. 

"I would give you the world," Jamie says, her forehead pressed against Joan’s shoulder, her voice muffled by Joan’s chest.  Her fingers are clutching the sheets on either side of Joan’s head and she’s almost shaking, her lips brushing against the skin at Joan’s clavicle.  "I would…" she whispers like a mantra, her breath hot on Joan’s chest.  "I would…"

It’s no way for this to end.  They’re both too proud to say that they want more from this. 

Yet, Jamie is saying just that.

The world might not be enough.  Joan bites her lip and lets her head fall back onto the pillows, her arms wrapping tentatively around Jamie’s shoulders.  She has to say it, and the weight of the words almost chokes her. 

And maybe she is just a star that shines too brightly, and maybe Joan’s a fool for venturing this close.  “I love you.”  She says it like a promise, and feels Jamie still underneath her, immobile and maybe shocked.  When she looks up at Joan, her eyes wide and staring, Joan can see that her eyes are wet with tears.  She doesn’t know if they’re from sadness or frustration at her inability to express herself. There’s shock in Jamie’s expression, and Joan wonders why she’s on the receiving end of this look, this terrible, horrible look that has no place on Jamie’s face. “And I can’t keep sneaking around, you flitting in and out of my life like a passing acquaintance.”

How can she believe that Jamie is shocked by the fact that Joan’s fallen victim to her charms? 

"Then we stop," Jamie says, leaning forward to press her lips to Joan’s, hot teeth and tongue and everything that Joan doesn’t want to have happen. As Jamie pulls away, lipstick even more smudged and her hair so mussed it will take a miracle to get it under control, Joan can see the future molding together into the space between them once more. 

Jamie looks away then, her expression almost unreadable.  “It has been a very long time since I’ve truly wanted someone to love me, Joan,” she confesses.  Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth and she’s worrying at it, almost refusing to look at Joan.  “And I never set out for this to happen.”

Their first encounter was at a club, Joan drawn out into the night by friends from college, Jamie accidentally-on-purpose being there as well.  They’d kissed and then fucked and it had been all feeling and mutual loathing and everything that they could never actually say to each other. 

And it had started a pattern that had ended up as this.

What Jamie doesn’t say could fill whole oceans with words strung together in such ways that they could tear down walls and rebuild empires from the rubble.  Her eyes are heralding in a maelstrom of all that cannot ever come to light.  “I cannot play the consummate girlfriend, Joan,” she says quietly, still not looking at Joan.  “I’m no good at things like that.”

Joan struggles to sit up, her arms wrapping around Jamie’s shoulders and pulling her in close.  “I’m not asking you for that,” she says.  Their bodies are pressed together and Jamie is so, so impossibly warm. Someone who is usually so cold has no business being that warm.  Joan doesn’t care though. She wants this and she will have it, because it has to work.  “I’m asking for you to commit, to stay more often.”  She doesn’t say that she’s sick of waking up alone, of going to bed alone.  She wants more than this, but if it is ever going to work, there are going to need to be baby steps.

"Alright."  Jamie says at length. 

And Joan hopes it’s enough to start them anew once more.

**Author's Note:**

> for the anonymous prompt: Joan has been putting up with Moriarty popping sporadically in and out of her life for a while and while she enjoys those encounters she's an all or nothing kind of girl.


End file.
